Happy Thanksgiving!! The Captain William Bull Tavern in Litchfield was built around 1745 on a farm on the East Litchfield Road, part of the Hartford to Albany highway. It is not known who built the house, but Capt. Bull was the owner of the farm by the 1790s. He had served at the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. The house passed through various owners until Frederick Fuessenich of Torrington purchased it in 1923. By that time it had fallen into disrepair and was in danger of being dismantled. Fuessenich saved it and moved the building to a new site about two miles away, placing it across from where the old tollhouse on the Torrington Turnpike had once stood. Fuessenich, an avid collector of antiques, restored and furnished the house, which he renamed the Tollgate Hill Tavern. (The house was featured in an article in the September 1925 issue of Country Life magazine). He also brought other colonial buildings to his property to create a period ambiance, including a house believed to have been the first school house used in the town of Berlin. The antiques collection was dispersed during the Depression. In the 1930s, Fuessenich and his wife established an inn at the Tavern. The Inn has since continued under various owners and the kitchen was completely renovated in 2003.
I think my family had Thanksgiving dinner here in the 70’s–it was a no holds barred extravaganza of everything from soup to nuts and lasted for 3 hours. Either that or it was a different lovely old inn house in Litchfield.